Dollhouse (TV series)

Dollhouse (2009–2010) is an American science fiction dramatic television series, created by Joss Whedon, about a futuristic laboratory that assigns different tasks to its various residents, who then have their memories erased upon the completion of their assignments.

Adele DeWitt: In their resting state, our actives are as innocent and vulnerable as children. We call it the "Tabula Rasa". The blank slate. Now imagine the imprint process filling it, creating a new personality. A friend, a lover, a confidant in a sea of enemies. Your heart's desire made flesh. And when the engagement has been completed, all memory of you and your time together will be wiped clean.

Boyd Langton: [Looking down on Actives doing tai ji] Look at them. Just a bunch of helpless children. Did the ones Alpha slaughtered even put up a fight?

Topher Brink: They wouldn't know how. Not without an imprint.

Boyd Langton: Why not default them with ninja skills or whatever?

Topher Brink: We tried that once.

Boyd Langton: And?

Topher Brink: Blood. Screaming. Dying.

Boyd Langton: Alpha.

Mellie: [After seeing Echo's picture] Pretty. Who's she?

Paul Ballard: Nobody, according to the FBI database. No record of her.

Mellie: Is she in trouble?

Paul Ballard: Maybe. She just got caught up with the wrong people. Either way, I'll keep looking until I find her.

Topher: They're eating lunch together, man friend. The same three. Even the same table. They're grouping.

Boyd: Are you saying they remember each other?

Topher: No, no, no. The wipes are clean. This goes deeper than memory, into instinctual survival patterns. Flocking. A whole mess of sparrows turning on a dime, salmon trucking upstream. This isn't a book club, man friend, this is the herd.

Boyd: They're not bison, Topher.

Topher: They're a little bit bison.

Boyd: They didn't used to be.

Topher: They volunteered for this.

Boyd: So we're told.

Echo: [as Taffy] They're called breasts, and yes, they are exceptional. You mention that, when you blog about this later.

Walton: If she's the best, how come I've never heard of her?

Echo: [as Taffy] You've heard of Bonnie and Clyde, right?

Walton: Are you Bonnie?

Echo: [as Taffy] No. I'm not that stupid. Bonnie and her gun-crazy beau, you know what they wanted? It wasn't to be the best. The best lead the quiet, head down kind of life. No, Bonnie and Clydie, they wanted fame, notoriety, and boy did they get it. They also got dead. I'll pass on that. When this is over, feel free to forget I exist.

Ivy: [Reading from list] Pizza squares, ice cream bites, beef jerky? Okay, you may be the boy god of all things neuro, and I do worship at the altar of your genius, but I am not getting you all of this stuff.

Topher: Ivy, babe, add juice boxes.

Ivy: You're privilege abusing.

Topher: Do you want to know how to avoid spandrels when aligning rigid designators?

Ivy: Grape or apple?

Topher: That could lead to a coma state, or it could turn her into Carrie at the prom

Boyd: Give me the bag.

Cyril: Who are you?

Boyd: The bag.

Cyril: I can't do that.

Boyd: Give me the bag.

Cyril: I've got a buyer. He pays me twice as much as it's worth, so --

Boyd: [Takes out a large revolver]

Cyril: Okay, okay. You and me, we go in together. 50/50.

Boyd: [Pulls the hammer back on the revolver]

Cyril: I'll drop this!

Boyd: I'll shoot you.

Cyril: This is -- the worth of this! This is a piece of the Parth -- do you know how much that's worth?! That's millions! I'm going to turn it into dust. I swear to God.

DeWitt: Good. It's your job not to like it, Mr. Dominic. But Senator Boxbaum is more than just a valued client, he's a well placed asset. Denying his request would have a steeper downside than acquiescing.

Dominic: It's not the job. I'm confident Langton can handle the ATF. It's Echo. Her field response has been wildly erratic lately.

DeWitt: She's demonstrated a talent for adaptability, which is precisely what's required in this instance.

Dominic: They shouldn't be adaptable, they should be predictable. If Alpha didn't teach us that much?

DeWitt: You don't like Echo, do you Mr. Dominic?

Dominic: It's not that I don't like her. It's sometimes I worry you do.

Echo: [as Esther][Hits Jonas in the head with a candlestick, knocking him out] Go!

Seth: Esther!

Echo: [as Esther] What is wrong with you?! You people are dying!

Seth: [Runs to Jonas' side] What have you done?

Echo: [as Esther] Start taking these people out of here. He swore to protect them. If he won't, we have to! Seth, the blind girl is looking you in the eye. Do you know what that means? It means God brought me here. He has a message for you, and that message is move your ass!

DeWitt: I find it a bit sad that you think of yourself as a candidate for anyone's fantasy.

Hearn: You know you're sweet on me.

[Dominic punches him in the ear.]

Echo: The dollhouse is real. They know you're after them and they're going to have you taken off the case. That's why they sent me.

Paul: Why are you telling me this?

Echo: We have a person inside. This person corrupted the imprint while the programmer wasn't looking, added this parameter.

Paul: Is this the person that sent me the tapes and the picture?

Echo: No. This is their first communication. Security inside is very tight.

Paul: Where is it?

Echo: You can't know that. You're going about this the wrong way.

Paul: I have to take down the dollhouse!

Echo: There are over twenty dollhouses in cities around the world. They have ties to every major political power on the planet. You cannot possibly stop them alone.

Paul: You're going to help me?

Echo: The person that sent this message is.

Paul: Why?

Echo: The dollhouse deals in fantasy. That is their business, but that is not their purpose.

Paul: What is?

Echo: We need you to find out. We'll contact you again, if possible with the same body. But you have to let the dollhouse win, make them back off. You have to trust me.

Ballard: Tell me about the dollhouse.

Joel Mynor: The Dollh... Uh, it's pink, and it opens up, and there's teeny furniture, and you put the boy doll on top of the girl doll and we learn about urges.

Joel Mynor: She never got to see this house. So, every year on this date I pretend she does. I get to see that look on her face, and I get to show her our extraordinary home.

Paul: And then you sleep with her.

Joel Mynor: Well, it is a fantasy.

Paul: I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Mynor. But it doesn't make you anything other than a predator.

Joel Mynor: Well, I'm sure I'm in serious need of some moral spankitude, but guess who's not qualified to be my Rabbi?

Adele: There are three flowers in a vase. The third flower is green.

Professor: Forget morality, imagine it's true, right. Imagine this technology being used. Now imagine it being used on you. Everything you believe, gone. Everyone you love, strangers, maybe enemies. Every part of you that makes you more than a walking cluster of neurons, Dissolved at someone else's whim. If that technology exists, It'll be used. It'll be abused. It'll be global. And we will be over. As a species we will cease to matter. I don't know. Maybe we should.

Dominic: I's easy to be attached to your assigned active. In fact it's necessary, but don't think of them as children; think of them as pets.

Dr. Saunders: Is that supposed to be funny?

Dominic: When your child Starts talking for the first time, you feel proud. When your dog does, you freak the hell out. Any Developmental progress an active makes is a threat to the house and a possible first step toward another Alpha.

Victor: [as Anthony] Who are you?

Echo: [as Caroline] Hey! I woke up in a five-star floor coffin just like you, buddy.

DeWitt: Everyone has their first date. And the object is to hide your flaws. And then you're in a relationship, and it's all about hiding your disappointment. And then, once you're married, it's about hiding your sins.

Topher: I found this in the chair.

Boyd: And?

Topher: This chip let someone access the primary imprint protocol, which means they could have altered my imprints. I make a cheerleader. They make a cheerleader that shoots people! Or an assassin that does cheers! Or any active, any time, with a parameter we don't know about.

Boyd: We have a spy.

Topher: Inside the dollhouse.

Boyd: You think it's me? You think I'm the spy?

Topher: Not in a bad way.

Boyd: They find out that you talked to me before you called DeWitt, they'll fry you.

Topher: If it hadn't been for me, there'd still be a security breach. You'd think the security head would recognize that! Typical middle management hack. He's mad at me for not discovering it before it happened, but I'm not a counter-intelligence agent, so I can't catch a spy. And you have no idea what I'm talking about.

Echo: I can help you.

Topher: Why would you want to?

Echo: Why wouldn't I?

Topher: Did I just lose an argument to a doll? Okay, thanks, but you can't help.

Echo: You make people different. [Sits in imprint chair] You can make me help.

Boyd: We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way.

Echo: What's in store for you, you don't have much to smile about.

Dominic: After you beat me to a pulp they're going to erase me. But first they're going to erase you.

Echo: I can take care of myself.

Dominic: I know. That's why I'm smiling, because one day you'll be erasing them, and even after all this they still won't see it coming. Sooner or later, everybody gets theirs.

DeWitt: Congratulations, Mr. Langton.

Boyd: For what?

DeWitt: For becoming our new head of security.

Boyd: I appreciate the offer, but I'd prefer to stay with Echo. I need to take care of her.

DeWitt: Apparently you don't. It seems she's the one taking care of us.

[looks around and hesitates as Adelle's secretary walks in with Adelle's morning tea, haltingly continuing]

Boyd: Because... If it is, thats... You realize...That's the beginning of the end. Life everlasting. It's.. it's the ultimate quest. Christianity, most religion, morality.... doesn't exist, without the fear of death.

DeWitt: I'm not planning on presiding over the end of Western Civilization. This is a one-time situation.

Boyd: You know that you're asking her to voluntarily die, when the time comes.

DeWitt: Well, if she resists I have a new head of security who handles that kind of thing.

Boyd: Mmmm. Yes, ma'am. [turns and begins to leave]

DeWitt: You can still help Echo, you know... Tell me your take on this.

Boyd: First instinct. Follow the money.

DeWitt: That's not easy.

Boyd: It is when the money runs. I've looked into the horses. One of them -- King's Ransom -- was a Derby contender not long ago.

DeWitt: So the husband stands to make a bundle.

Boyd: So does the buyer. I thought I'd send someone to look around the stables... A breeder, with a naturally curious streak....?

Boyd: One other thing, Miss DeWitt. Are you aware of this 'Topher' situation?

DeWitt: [smiles] Yessss. There's no need to address the issue with him. I allow him one of these "diagnostic" tests every now and again.

Boyd: Well, I guess Topher can make friends...

[as they continue talking in voiceover, we see Sierra bringing a Twinkie with birthday candles to Topher in his office]

DeWitt: Loneliness leads to nothing good, only detachment. And sometimes the people who most need to reach out are the people least capable of it. In any case, it only happens once a year.

DeWitt: Tell me you weren't tempted, even a little, to not come back here today.Just to disappear in this body.

Echo: [as Margaret] Maybe a little. But I've had my turn. And the people I love are moving on... besides.

DeWitt: Besides?

Echo: [as Margaret] I know you, Adelle. You're too much like me. [smiles] I wouldn't have gotten as far as the airport.

Stephen Kepler: [standing in front of several marijuana plants] Carrots! Medicinal carrots! Personal use medicinal carrots that were here when I moved in and I'm holding it for a friend!

Stephen Kepler: [after watching Ballard stun Topher] What the hell was that?! Was that some kind of joy buzzer stun gun? I mean, officially I deplore violence, but that was totally worth the loss of karma points!

Stephen Kepler: Would you look at this place? I mean, first of all feng shui up the yin yang, also I designed parts of it but I did not design the stone cold foxes in the small clothes and the ample massage facilities. I mean, don't get me wrong, I heart my porn, but this is cool!

Paul: This is a bad place.

Stephen Kepler: Bad people, maybe. Good place.

Stephen Kepler: The stairs lack risers!

Paul: What?

Stephen Kepler: The vertical part that makes the back of each stair is called a riser.

Paul: I know what they are!

Stephen Kepler: No, no, wait! Please. Sometimes when I go on stairs that don't have risers I get this feeling, this awful sensation, that something's going reach out and grab my ankle, like a claw or a tentacle!

Alpha: We're not just humans anymore. We're not multiple personalities. We're many personalities. Uh... one of my personalities happens to be a multiple personality, but that doesn't make me a multiple personality. I'm looking for a little nuance here.

Echo: I remember everything. Sometimes I'm someone else and then I come back, but I still feel them. All of them. I've been many people. I can hear them, sometimes suddenly. I'm all of them, but none of them is me. Do you know who's real?

Ballard: Caroline

Echo: I want to find her. I want to find all of them. Real them. They can be found. We are lost, but we are not gone.

Echo: Not remember - feel. I was married. I felt love, and pain, fear. It's not pretend for me. They made me love my little boy and then they took him away. They make it so real. Every time, they make it so real. Why do they do that?

...

Ballard: If you want, I'll tell Topher what's going on with you and he can fix it. He'll come up with a way to wipe you and you won't remember a thing. You won't have to feel sad anymore.

Echo: Feeling nothing would be worse. It would be like before - asleep. I'm awake now. I don't want to go back to sleep.

Topher:[Shows Adelle a brain scan] This is a brain. A healthy brain. Frankly an... overly smart brain... it's my brain. And this is Terry Karrens' brain. [Shows Adelle another brain scan] See these dark areas? How they extend all the way out to here? You know why that looks like that? That's because Terry Karrens doesn't use that part of his brain. And that'd be where you find stored such things as empathy, compassion... an aversion to disemboweling puppies. Basically, this is what some of your more famous serial killers' brains look like.

Adele: You're quite certain of this?

Topher: Certain enough that I have serious ethical problems trying to wake him up.

[Echo squeals girlishly and follows the attendant to get her new wardrobe]

[Ballard is told to go sit and wait for Echo to get her new outfit. He sits next to another Dollhouse agent who is reading a magazine]

Dollhouse Agent: I won't even do this for my wife.

Ballard: I was trained at Quantico.

Boyd: I'll cover your engagement, you're staying here.

Ballard: Why?

Boyd: Turns out we have a sudden need for an FBI profiler. I suggested you.

Ballard: For what?

Boyd: To interrogate a possible serial killer.

Ballard: Serial killer. [looks at Echo, who has come out in a short skirt, knee socks, a bright pink tank top, and pigtails] ...Thank God. [rushes out]

Echo:[as Kiki] Okay, so I probably never should have taken this course to begin with, but I figured it was mid-evil lit, not advanced-evil - how hard could it be? So, I skipped 'Intro to Evil' or whatever. But how is it I get an 'F' when this guy that we're reading, Chauncy, can't even spell?

Topher: [to Adelle] Aren't we supposed to care for these people? Doctor Saunders would never have allowed-!

Adelle: [While drunk] Which Doctor Saunders would that be? The avuncular physician so brutally cut down not five feet from where you were standing? Or the last woman to whom you gave a permanent imprint - the other wounded flower you restored by offering her a new life - who apparently found you so unbearable she had to flee the city. Is it that one?

Adelle: [to Topher] The cold reality is that everyone here was chosen because their morals have been compromised in some way. Everyone, except you. You, Topher, were chosen because you had no morals. You have always thought of people as playthings. This is not a judgment. You’ve always taken very good care of your toys, but you’re simply going to have to let this one go.

Adelle: I would no sooner allow you near one of our other Actives as I would a mad dog near a child, given that you're a raping scumbag one tick shy of a murderer. I can't recall do you take sugar?

Echo: You just woke up a lot of people. And they all think you're a bitch.

Senator Daniel Perrin: Stop I love her!

Echo: I know. [Punches Perrin] Luckily I don't have that problem.

Senator Daniel Perrin: At those hearings, you will hear a most innocent word. A word that will take on a new and grim meaning. A word that will become synomous with human trafficking, prostitution and unconscionable abuse of Neural Technology. Directly traceable back to the Rossum Corporation. That word is "Dollhouse."

DeWitt: Once a Sleeper Active's protocol has been triggered, the thing you're facing will neither be reasoned with, or stopped.

Bennett: Keep you mind on your work, please. The moment you start wondering about the people upstairs, they'll start wondering about you. That is nothing you want.

Bennett: What's interesting to me is that - you don't call out to God. It isn't a question of faith, it's just the venacular. Anyone in this much pain prays, or at least curses. But we take God from you too. You really are a shell.

Topher: Okay, so we have had an active, Whiskey. She was rendered unengageable. So we - *I* made her into a doctor. Uh - and you - so I thought maybe - similar - Bennet - the real Bennett would use an active to...

Bennett: You thought... That's idiotic. Actives are beautiful.

Topher: Yeah.

Echo: We haven't escaped. They're coming. They always come. Because of this [Touches the back of Perrin's Neck]

DeWitt: It feels like ages ago that we actually weighed a request against an active's chance at survival. Let alone well being.

Langton: We've always put them at risk. We just don't lie to ourselves about it now.

DeWitt: You sound like Harding.

Topher: Well I punched her in the kisser - not what I was intending to do there, by the way - and knocked her out cold, which she might have been impressed by if she hadn't been out cold.

Topher: I think they're trying to build a portable device that would be able to imprint anyone without any active architecture in place. Any innocent on the street with a new personality.

DeWitt: That's unnerving.

Topher: What's unnerving is - I figured out how to do it.

Topher: You are the coldest bitch on the planet!

DeWitt: That is the last time you will ever speak to me like that, or at all unless spoken to. You're off R&D and back on programming. You will imprint these dolls with dedication and precision. And you will follow every single one of my commands as if they were your hearts deepest desire.

Topher: And what happens if I don't?

DeWitt: I would hope that, as some who does care for you, that you will never find that out. I rule this house! I won't let *anyone* challenge that, ever again!

DeWitt: One wonders how she managed. Out there. Alone. The odds of an active in an infantile state surviving outside the Dollhouse unprotected. I suppose we must take into account the fact that Echo is special.

Ballard: You're punishing her for surviving. It's complete lunacy!

Topher: I am obsolete. This must be what old people feel like, and Blockbuster.

Langton: Alpha do not do this. There's a part of you that knows this is wrong.

Alpha: There are many parts of me that know this is wrong. None of them care. And six... they just find it funny.

Alpha: You're in for a ride. You're not going to get loose. One of my imprints was an Eagle Scout, another one was a sailor. There's a dirty joke in there somewhere.

Alpha: For months you shared the same room. You never slept with her. You could have, but you didn't. If that's not love - Are you gay?

Echo: Everything's slipping away from me. Before it was memories. But I figured out how to hold on to them. And now that I have something real - people I care about - they're slipping away from me too.

Topher: What did I just tell you?

Victor: 5 years would seem like... 5 seconds.

Topher: Welcome to the future, where cars fly, robots serve our every whim, and genetically engineered dinosaurs rule the Earth.

Ivy: It's pretty much the same as when you left.

Victor: The war - is it...?

Topher: Still going.

DeWitt: Do you think anything goes on in my house wihout my knowledge?

Echo: I don't know. It seems like a lot went down without you knowing.

DeWitt: Yes. While I'm not surprised that Paul... and Boyd managed to keep your secret. But *Topher*? He can barely keep his belch to himself.

Topher: I don't know: experimenting, torture. They're testing the limits of the human mind. The brain is kept in a fear induced adrenaline fueled overdrive state like a problem you can't solve. Either the nightmare lasts forever or...

Langton: Or it doesn't last at all.

Nolan: You know, this is a scenario I've never tried. Rigor mortis - the new Viagra.

DeWitt: You gave us extraordinary technology which will be used soon. The question is whether you have anything more to offer. Whether you can accept radical change, or buckle under pressure.

Topher: I don't buckle. Occassionally, I swashbuckle.

DeWitt: Yes, you're quite the pirate hero. Swinging in and dismembering Nolan Kinnard. If you try and keep secrets from the corporation, you may have every expectation of being chopped into pieces yourself. How do you imagine that would feel?

DeWitt: You didn't come to the Dollhouse because of Echo. You came because you work for Rossum. That means your option tend to slim to three: carry out Rossum's work without question, the attic or death. The moment you stepped into this house, you, in effect. gave us your life. And you must decide if that is to be put to good use, or laid to waste. I have seen the future, Mr. Langton. And it is not for the weak.

Adelle DeWitt: Caroline Farrel left quite a trail of unhappiness in her wake, and not a few bodies.

Echo: Are you saying she's evil?

DeWitt: Worse. An idealist. I shouldn't be at all suprised if it turned out her wedge had got up and walked out on its own.

Topher: Then maybe we could work on the one memory I'd like to erase. Bennett... I'm so sorry I hit you. I didn't want to. God, how I didn't want to.

Bennett: Well, I was trying to kill your Active at the time.

Topher: Eh. You had your reasons. Still... that face. Slugging it. Not my first instinct.

Bennett: Oh, I didn't think it was.

Topher: Some form of contact, but not...

Bennett: [They go in closer to almost kiss but then] Who's on that wedge?

Topher: Huh?

Bennett: Who are you trying to resurrect?

Topher: Uh... This person.[Chuckles] It's stupid. Does it... Does it matter?

Bennett: It might.

Topher: It's not like it's Stalin or somebody.

Bennett: I didn't suppose that it would be a historical figure. Who is it?

Topher: Ivy's right, we actually don't know what dumping Caroline into Echo's brain will do. Your original self comes home to find the house party that's going on inside your head. She might fight back.

Echo: She'd lose.

DeWitt: All right, pull Caroline from the Vault. Put Echo in the chair.